Nuclear Power

Abstract

It is estimated that in near future the available conventional power, i.e. the power harnessed from coal, oil, hydro-electricity etc would become totally inadequate to match the ever increasing demands. This grim situation, therefore, calls for the exploitation of new types of power, e.g. the nuclear power obtained from the nuclear reactors, both fission and fusion.

The basic idea of a fission reactor is that if a fissile material like U²³⁵ undergoes fission, then 2 or 3 neutrons are produced in each fission process, and if by some trick we could minimize the leakage of neutrons from the assembly called pile or reactor, and reduce the losses of neutrons in non-fissionable processes (radiative, capture, i.e. absorption of neutrons leading to production of γ-rays) then it is possible that the neutrons thus produced will cause further fissions in their encounters with other nuclei of the fuel element, the number of neutrons in one generation being at least equal to the number in the previous generation; and if this process called the Chain Reaction, is sustained for sufficiently long time, then we have a convenient way of obtaining power from the reactor. This is so because a very large number of fissions take place per second, and in each fission, the fission fragments carry bulk of the kinetic energy (85 %), which means that heat is produced at a constant rate. In principle, the reactor will continue to work until the fuel is exhausted or the assembly rendered ‘poisonous’ owing to the constant accumulation of fission products which merely absorb the neutrons via non-fissionable processes.